Practice swing takeaway vs actual swing takeaway

[RoyalMustang]

I noticed this on video the other day: it had been a good while since I had seen myself on video. I posted side by side photo shots and the actual video.

 

On my practice swing, my takeaway and position at the top looks better than my real swing. I'm doing something but I can't really figure it out. Every video was just like this: my practice swing looks cleaner and more balanced. I'm steeper on my real swing and almost hitching somehow to get the club on plane. 

 

Thoughts on this (or anything else)? 

 

 

 

Edited October 12, 2023 by RoyalMustang

[slytown]

It looks the same to me. What I see is a very steep and high backswing with not a lot of depth. That's fine, but you are going to have to drip the hands straight down to get on plane. At the moment the club comes way OTT.

[elephant15]

The practice take away seems to be initiated by your torso. The real one seems to be initiated with you left arm. In other words, the left arm in your real swing is relatively overactive compared to your practice swing. Notice the gap (armpit area) between your left arm and torso at the start of the take away. It’s different between the practice and the real.

[Valtiel]

A lot of this ties back into the move you do in transition, but we'll start from the top.



From the beginning you actually pick the club up much more vertically in the practice swing via radial deviation and some bend at the elbow. You also have a lot more flex in the right leg which you use to gain more "depth" in the practice swing.



You have and maintain more tilt/spine angle in the practice swing, and you also are we deeper in your right heel as we can see your toe up off the ground. This isn't a balanced position and likely is why you don't get that deep in the real swing, it's right hip depth via leaning backwards (which unbalances you) vs. external rotation (which doesn't).



At the top of your swing is the biggest difference as you've continued to stand up and lose spine angle. You're also loaded further laterally into your right foot as we can see by how its rolled more to the outside, which suggests you haven't gotten off your trail foot by the time your backswing finishes......and we all know what that means next:



Big right leg thrust towards the ball causing further posture loss.

Your practice swing is different because you're not attempting any kind of transition move to hit the ball in it, and when you actually do that transition move in the real swing the faulty mechanics of it reverberates back through your swing as your body (likely subconsciously) prepares for this early extension move and the backing out of your posture to make contact.

Take two Monte's and call me (or him) in the morning. 😅

Monte Hips

Monte Shifts

Edited October 12, 2023 by Valtiel

[RoyalMustang]

15 hours ago, Valtiel said:

A lot of this ties back into the move you do in transition, but we'll start from the top.



From the beginning you actually pick the club up much more vertically in the practice swing via radial deviation and some bend at the elbow. You also have a lot more flex in the right leg which you use to gain more "depth" in the practice swing.



You have and maintain more tilt/spine angle in the practice swing, and you also are we deeper in your right heel as we can see your toe up off the ground. This isn't a balanced position and likely is why you don't get that deep in the real swing, it's right hip depth via leaning backwards (which unbalances you) vs. external rotation (which doesn't).



At the top of your swing is the biggest difference as you've continued to stand up and lose spine angle. You're also loaded further laterally into your right foot as we can see by how its rolled more to the outside, which suggests you haven't gotten off your trail foot by the time your backswing finishes......and we all know what that means next:



Big right leg thrust towards the ball causing further posture loss.

Your practice swing is different because you're not attempting any kind of transition move to hit the ball in it, and when you actually do that transition move in the real swing the faulty mechanics of it reverberates back through your swing as your body (likely subconsciously) prepares for this early extension move and the backing out of your posture to make contact.

Take two Monte's and call me (or him) in the morning. 😅

Monte Hips

Monte Shifts

 

Thanks! That makes a ton of sense. It's crazy that I've been improving my scores so much recently with these flaws still hounding me. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by RoyalMustang

[RoyalMustang]

@Valtiel

 

How do I get the hips in the right spot on the backswing I spend an hour trying to get that right hip back at the top and balanced over the right foot, yet when I look at the video, it doesn't looks the same as before. What is the "feel" there? I don't have good kinesthetic awareness unfortunately. It feels like my hip is going back but doesn't look to be doing so in the shot.   

 

But any "feel" that I am looking for (muscles to be engaged, weight shift and loading feel under my feet) would be very helpful. Thanks! 

 

Also, at impact, I see what you are talking about: my right hip is moving forward. This compared to Justin Rose at impact: his right hip is hanging back more. How do I make that move? 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2023 by RoyalMustang

[Valtiel]

On 10/13/2023 at 8:56 AM, RoyalMustang said:

@Valtiel

 

How do I get the hips in the right spot on the backswing I spend an hour trying to get that right hip back at the top and balanced over the right foot, yet when I look at the video, it doesn't looks the same as before. What is the "feel" there? I don't have good kinesthetic awareness unfortunately. It feels like my hip is going back but doesn't look to be doing so in the shot.   

 

But any "feel" that I am looking for (muscles to be engaged, weight shift and loading feel under my feet) would be very helpful. Thanks! 

 

Also, at impact, I see what you are talking about: my right hip is moving forward. This compared to Justin Rose at impact: his right hip is hanging back more. How do I make that move? 

 

Ironically it's often the fixation on getting the right hip "in the the right spot" that causes this problem. I'll try to explain as best I can using my own experiences and visuals that have helped me.

When we fixate the right leg/hip too much it's really easy to get stuck/static and suffer from all the problems that creates (depth loss, EE, high ballflight etc). This is especially true if you have a quicker tempo, which you do. The key's for me as someone who absolutely got stuck on my right side for too long are:

1) Peak EARLY



As far as feel goes, this gif represents the entirety of what would feel like the conscious effort to shift into the trail side. It's over in a heartbeat....the club has barely left the ground. Nothing after this contains *any* more conscious shifting to the right, and in fact it contains the *resistance* to the momentum from the initial shift combined with the swing of the arms and the club away from us, so what looks like more shifting to the right is actually...

2) The seeds of the shift left



This one contains a powerful illusion because of the resistance to the momentum mentioned above. It might look like further loading into the trail leg, and a nominal pressure increase might be noted on a force plate, but the fact there is no continued shifting to the right combined with the yardage book in his back pocket making a notable move *left* means that to the player this part should feel like a hard braking/bracing against the right side and a shift in momentum leftward. Note the right foot and how its already tipping in towards the left slightly and the only thing technically still moving right is some elements of the upper lead side which sort of "crunches" into the braced trail side. 

3) Recentering + bonus rotation



With the bracing/braking described before we now see the shift in momentum towards the lead side increasing and we're almost all the way back in the box before the backswing has ended. If you look closely as well there is actually a couple degrees *more* hip turn happening here. It's like the final crank of a torque wrench about to reach maximum force before releasing, which happens here:

4) Boom



BIG crunch down into the front side in the moment that the club changes direction at the top. There is zero effective shoulder rotation or hand movement and the hips are now actually *left* of where they started:



And from here Rory obviously uses a lot of ground force to unload and produce huge power. 

This is NOT an advocation to attempt moving like Rory, this is purely a visual example of someone that does a number of these fundamental moves in a more exaggerated way and if watch Tony Finau from the same view you'll see WAY less of all this. What this IS is an advocation for what you need to consciously focus on in terms of sequencing. It is one part "shift right" that happens extremely quickly and three parts stabilizing and getting back to your front side before your downswing even kicks off, something that personally I feel like is almost impossible to do too quickly and VERY easy to do too slowly. 

And across all of this, a personal feel I have in my head is that there is a rod running through my body like this:



It's just a mental image of the thing I am bracing against to prevent any kind of excessive shift into my right side. 

Edited October 18, 2023 by Valtiel

[tthomasgolfer605]

Feel like you're swinging the club around your belt. 

[RoyalMustang]

16 hours ago, Valtiel said:

Ironically it's often the fixation on getting the right hip "in the the right spot" that causes this problem. I'll try to explain as best I can using my own experiences and visuals that have helped me.

When we fixate the right leg/hip too much it's really easy to get stuck/static and suffer from all the problems that creates (depth loss, EE, high ballflight etc). This is especially true if you have a quicker tempo, which you do. The key's for me as someone who absolutely got stuck on my right side for too long are:

1) Peak EARLY



As far as feel goes, this gif represents the entirety of what would feel like the conscious effort to shift into the trail side. It's over in a heartbeat....the club has barely left the ground. Nothing after this contains *any* more conscious shifting to the right, and in fact it contains the *resistance* to the momentum from the initial shift combined with the swing of the arms and the club away from us, so what looks like more shifting to the right is actually...

2) The seeds of the shift left



This one contains a powerful illusion because of the resistance to the momentum mentioned above. It might look like further loading into the trail leg, and a nominal pressure increase might be noted on a force plate, but the fact there is no continued shifting to the right combined with the yardage book in his back pocket making a notable move *left* means that to the player this part should feel like a hard braking/bracing against the right side and a shift in momentum leftward. Note the right foot and how its already tipping in towards the left slightly and the only thing technically still moving right is some elements of the upper lead side which sort of "crunches" into the braced trail side. 

3) Recentering + bonus rotation



With the bracing/braking described before we now see the shift in momentum towards the lead side increasing and we're almost all the way back in the box before the backswing has ended. If you look closely as well there is actually a couple degrees *more* hip turn happening here. It's like the final crank of a torque wrench about to reach maximum force before releasing, which happens here:

4) Boom



BIG crunch down into the front side in the moment that the club changes direction at the top. There is zero effective shoulder rotation or hand movement and the hips are now actually *left* of where they started:



And from here Rory obviously uses a lot of ground force to unload and produce huge power. 

This is NOT an advocation to attempt moving like Rory, this is purely a visual example of someone that does a number of these fundamental moves in a more exaggerated way and if watch Tony Finau from the same view you'll see WAY less of all this. What this IS is an advocation for what you need to consciously focus on in terms of sequencing. It is one part "shift right" that happens extremely quickly and three parts stabilizing and getting back to your front side before your downswing even kicks off, something that personally I feel like is almost impossible to do too quickly and VERY easy to do too slowly. 

And across all of this, a personal feel I have in my head is that there is a rod running through my body like this:



It's just a mental image of the thing I am bracing against to prevent any kind of excessive shift into my right side. 

 

Awesome images! 

[MK7Golf21]

On 10/12/2023 at 12:16 PM, slytown said:

It looks the same to me. What I see is a very steep and high backswing with not a lot of depth. That's fine, but you are going to have to drip the hands straight down to get on plane. At the moment the club comes way OTT.

 

End of thread, all the stuff you are doing is related to what you are doing with your arms on the backswing. You aren't a body dominated golfer where the arms go for a ride on the way back (Kwon) which is fine but you aren't using your arms well at all. Basically lifting them over your head with the butt of the club out past your toes at the top, it's supposed to be near your heel at the top of the swing. It's all compensations on the downswing based on this. 

 

I notice posters get all in the weeds on micro moves when there is a blaring flaw in the swing that should be addressed first. Then start making other changes to see what has cleaned up.

[slytown]

On 10/13/2023 at 11:56 AM, RoyalMustang said:

@Valtiel

 

How do I get the hips in the right spot on the backswing I spend an hour trying to get that right hip back at the top and balanced over the right foot, yet when I look at the video, it doesn't looks the same as before. What is the "feel" there? I don't have good kinesthetic awareness unfortunately. It feels like my hip is going back but doesn't look to be doing so in the shot.   

 

But any "feel" that I am looking for (muscles to be engaged, weight shift and loading feel under my feet) would be very helpful. Thanks! 

 

Also, at impact, I see what you are talking about: my right hip is moving forward. This compared to Justin Rose at impact: his right hip is hanging back more. How do I make that move? 

 

 

 

So, @Valtiel is correct, but I can simplify. You basically only pick the club up in the backswing and have no rotation. This puts the hands and the clubhead over your toes at the top of the backswing. It would be very difficult to do anything else in the downswing other than swing over the top from that backswing. You need to incorporate body rotation more. Without it, all sorts of problems arise.

 

Don't worry too much about perfect positions or weight transfer. What you need to understand is that the swing is rotational. If you can work on taking your arms out of the equation just in the backswing and turning the club back with your body, its a great start. This will result in the hands and club staying lower in the backswing, making it easier to turn in the downswing.

 

I think this drill will work really well for you. It forces you to get rotation and hand depth using your body. All you need to do once you complete the backswing in this drill is slide your right hand down to the grip and hit the ball. You don't need to lift your arms. Just hold the club on both ends and turn. Then you can start your downswing.

 

 

 

[Valtiel]

@slytown and @MK7Golf21 are definitely right about the hands, I actually got your swing @RoyalMustang confused with someone else's that actually had a wider variety of hand positions at the top so I didn't call that out, but in trying to find those I noticed that in all your previous shared videos that the high/shallow hands are a consistent pattern that has been called out before, so while I stand by the pivot stuff, you're definitely going to need to address that first.